ResNova Version 4
ResNova is ResRequest’s innovative online booking widget designed to seamlessly integrate your lodge’s availability and rates directly into your website, making it easier than ever to manage your bookings and increase your revenue
ResConnect Channel Manager
ResConnect can boost your revenue and brand by connecting you to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and Specialist Agents in the African Tourism industry. Join ResConnect Partner Programme to expand your profile and increase revenue.
2022 Unwrapped
Well well well, can you believe it’s already the end of 2022?! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun (or when you’re surviving a pandemic, amirite?). But seriously, as we look back on the past year, we can’t help but feel grateful for all the twists and turns that have come our way. This year has been unlike any other and we’ve learned a lot, grown a lot, and hopefully even made a few memories along the way. So let’s take a moment to reflect on all that we’ve accomplished and give ourselves a big ol’ pat on the back. Here’s to another amazing year ahead!
2021 Unwrapped
Our Team in 2021
Even though this has been one of the most challenging years since Y2K, there is one thing all of us in tourism can agree on… bring on 2022!
To keep us sane until 2022 we’ve put together a 2021 collage. There were highlights, lowlights, tears, and laughs. We hope you enjoy this wrap-up as much as we do.
Webinars
We were devastated that most conferences and exhibitions were cancelled again but we enthusiastically participated in several online webinars, and we launched our own Web Series.
Our Web Series included guest speakers from the tourism industry and our own powerful panelists. If you missed out, or if you loved them so much you would like to watch them again, visit our Webinar page for links to the recorded sessions.
Site Visits
Vaccination rollouts gained momentum mid-year with most of our team only being eligible to travel in the last quarter. Once travel protocols were in place we dusted off ResRover, popped on a mandatory mask, and started trekking to client sites from Kruger to Kenya.
Heritage Day
Most of our team are based in Durban and were impacted by the bizarre looting in July. As part of our healing process, we celebrated Heritage Day in September by reminding ourselves what makes life in South African lekker.
New Superheroes
We too have been affected by the Covid churn in the recruitment marketplace with some team members opting for full-time parenting, lie-flatting, and career changes. This drove us to re-work processes and increase automation – while our remaining team picked up the extra workload – these guys are the tourism industry’s true superheroes!
We also found some great new talent. We welcomed Ivan to our Professional Services team and Joami joined our UI, UX, and Digital Marketing team.
As tourism markets reopen, our HR department is looking for strong, skilled candidates to regrow our team. Visit our online Join Our Team page to find out more about positions available.
Our People, Our Culture
We took some time to recognize the hard work our team has put in the last year and a half. Our team members had the opportunity to nominate each other for going above and beyond and we had a lucky draw, with 5 double tickets to Dune up for grabs.
Sadly we had to postpone our first ResPlex movie drive-in due to the arrival of Omicron, but that didn’t stop us from watching our selected movie from the comfort of our respective homes.
Wellness Time
After the Durban looting on top of a new Covid wave, our HR team concluded that we needed more than a one-day holiday for our health and well-being. With the aid of Gordon Goose, we received this welcome medicine.
Credit to Gordon Goose for production content.
ResFit Clubs
With Covid forcing us to be socially distanced and locked indoors, we got our social groove on by converting our ResFit programme into smaller ResFit Clubs. Our Cliquer Club (“Where we just Click”) thrilled us with weekly photos where they put into practice some of the skills being taught by our certified photographer, Jaco.
Our Foodies Club had us drooling with posts of scrumptious meals and delights. Our Hiking Club attempted several excursions and our Jedi Council and had some heated and controversial debates. Here are some of the artwork and experiences we shared.
Giveback
This year taught us so much about being grateful. While it was one of our most challenging years as a team, we gave to others in need. Here is a highlights reel of our 2021 givebacks.
Our Mascots
We salute our team mascots Maggie and Violet for being such an integral part of our culture.
From us to you, we wish your every bed-night is filled, as the post-Covid tourism boom promises.
May your lodges fill up and may all your seasons be bright!
Have a healthy and happy Christmas and New Year.
For information on any of our products and services, or to simply wish us a jolly-good Christmas, feel free to Contact Us.
Bringing you a Contactless Guest Solution
Your guests are super excited about their holiday with you. Help them by giving them the option to check-in online, saving them time and queues when they arrive. Plus, our online check-in is a contactless way to source guest details and preferences, so you can plan the best welcome for them. In this blog we’ll explore these features available to you in our Guest Services module released with version 7.33. Guest Services Everyone wants a quick and streamlined process, and guests are eager to do what’s needed to reduce time with administration check-in before their travel date.
This means that prior to arrival is the perfect time to gather as much contact information as possible (without overwhelming them with data capture fatigue!). Most travellers also know that giving you their contact details and signing necessary indemnity documents prior to arrival, is a standard operating process required by any lodge or hotel. Your reservation team can include a link in the reservation documents sent to the person who made the booking. The link points to your Guest Services page. From this page, the guest then has the option to create or edit a guest list or to check-in a guest for a booking.
Our new Guest Services module provides you and your team access to our guest-list, guest check-in, and automated workflow functionality, to optimise your contactless check-in process. Here is a summary of the functionality these features provide:
Guest List
Our guest list provides a way for you and your team to collect guest details long before they arrive at your property. The guest list functionality lets the booking contacts compile their own guest list and room group, provided they can verify the booking details. While compiling a guest list, booking contacts also have the option to easily link a guest record (or the entire list) across multiple itineraries.
Automated Workflows
Remind your incoming guests that they can check-in online, prior to their arrival by using our automated workflows. Set up the date and time the check-in reminder should be sent to your guest ahead of their arrival so they receive a reminder email which includes a link to your online check-in.
Guest Check-in
Your guests can check-in as early as 7 days prior to their arrival. Guests can find the online check-in in their reservation document or via the automated email reminder. Information added during the check-in process is stored on the guest’s profile, along with a guest registration document which includes a record of the indemnity agreement the guest agreed to during check-in. For guidance, our support team will be delighted to help you work with the guest services module.
Feel free to contact us us with any queries you or your team have. We are here and ready to help.
what’s new in version 7.33?
We through with the first quarter of 2021 and plans to reboot tourism are well underway. We’ve worked hard during these times to make sure that when tourism does officially reboot, you and your team will be ready to welcome guests with open arms (or perhaps an elbow tap).
Online Guest Checkin
We know that COVID-19 has forced the tourism industry to find innovative solutions to help us navigate our guests’ experience. Even as vaccines are being rolled out in different parts of the world, social distancing and the wearing of masks will continue for a while to come.
In the past, your accommodation generally involved frequent contact between staff and guests, but going forward, it will be imperative to limit contact, and to help with that, we’ve developed a contactless guest check-in solution. With Covid still lurking about, clients would most likely prefer an online check-in solution, so that the guest can limit contact with the front-of-house team and the respective paperwork.
Our newly developed guest services module offers you and your team access to guest list, guest check-in and automated workflow functionality, to optimise your contactless check-in process.
Agent terms at property level
If you run multiple properties in your system, you’ll love being able to work with simpler rates. This could now be possible by setting agent commissions for each property. Instead of managing hundreds of unique rate sheets (often riddled with typos), you can now set up contracts with your agents as a commission per property.
Rates rounding per person
Rounding in ResRequest takes place when a commission percentage is applied to a commissionable rate. The system currently offers the facility to round rates at the itinerary level. This latest release, however, introduces the option of rounding at a per person level.
This rounding option is set on the rate header and a new option has been added on the reservation documents to allow you to show the per person charge amount details on those documents.
Multiple Specials on a booking
With this latest release, it is now possible to apply multiple specials to a reservation. If a booking qualifies for both a Circuit discount and a Honeymoon discount, both can be applied.
The addition Special Combos, govern which specials can be combined, so they can automatically be applied as the sales team makes bookings.
Outlet Sales
Our integration with TallOrder POS streamlines operations by posting POS charges to guest accounts. It is, however, very important that these charges are also posted to your accounting system.
With our latest development, ResRequest now detects POS cash sales that are not linked to room activity. These sales are then recorded in ResRequest, which allows them to be included in ResRequest reports. The resulting financial transactions can then also be batched to your general ledger, along with the rest of your ResRequest invoices.
User access audit trail
We have recognised the importance of having transparency of any changes that have been made to user access in your reservation system.
On the user access audit report, you can now filter by users, user groups, functions, and type filters (for filtering by the types of changes made, ie. allow cross invoicing, API flag, functions access).
The addition of the user access audit trail will now allow your team to report on any changes made (going forward from this release) to user access.
Multiple system administrators
You will now have the option to add multiple system admins and ensure that key decisions that affect your reservation system can be made by various managers, instead of merely relying on a single System Administrator.
To ensure that your business never misses a beat, put a continuity plan for your team in place today, by adding additional system administrators.
If you need any assistance or guidance with the with our new features, please contact [email protected]
Benefits of using a Channel Manager
Working in a fast-paced industry like the tourism industry requires any good Hotel Manager to identify ways to increase revenue and maximise efficiency. Thankfully technology has provided many advantages for hoteliers, and none more so than channel management. So what’s the noise about channel management? What are its benefits? And how do you get started?
What is Channel Management?
Channel management is the process of selling your inventory through online distribution channels all over the world. These channels include OTA’s (Booking.com, Expedia), Travel Agents, Metasearch engines (Google, TripAdvisor), or direct channels (Your website).
Ideally, channel management software provides a centralised platform to properties for managing their distribution across different platforms, and as and when bookings are recorded from any one channel, it automatically updates the latest rates and inventory on all the channels.
How can this benefit you?
Imagine that you’re managing multiple properties through many OTA channels and once you receive a booking from a channel, you have to quickly update the availability across the other channels. Furthermore, the situation can get complex if the guest modifies or changes his booking or cancels his reservation. Can you imagine how admin-intensive this process can be, also leaving room for human error.
- Accurate inventory management – Without a Channel Manager you have to log in to the various OTAs you are connected to and update your property’s availability, this manual process requires you to react quickly with a great deal of accuracy. A Channel Manager solution provides an automated process that eliminates any chance of error and streamlines your reservation management.
- Avoid overbookings – The more OTAs you’re connected to, the higher your chances are of overbookings if you are not using a channel manager. So chances are that while you are updating the inventories, you may receive a booking from other channels.
- Time Effective – A channel manager, ensures that a lot of your manual efforts and time invested in inventory distribution is saved. The entire process is now managed by the channel manager, saving you time and money.
How do you get started?
Through our ResConnect programme, there are connections to Channel Managers and OTAs which enable ResRequest customers to distribute stock on numerous online booking platforms. ResRequest has direct connections to Channel Managers, SynXis, NightsBridge, and most recently we have added Siteminder to the list of Channel Managers that we interfaced to.
For more information on how to set up your ResRequest Channel Management service (we call this module ResConnect), contact our friendly support team for assistance at [email protected]
what’s new in version 7.30?
We hope that you and your loved ones are safe and well during this time. We’ve been in touch with many of you as you work through the operational impact of Covid-19 while making plans for your team to be safe and sound.
While most of us are still under lockdown due to COVID-19, we have been working from home. It took us a while to adapt and reduce costs so we could use this time to put our heads down to take massive strides in delivering new product features. We’re still working on all of this, but we wanted to check in with you to show you some of the items we are working on that will be ready and waiting for you when you reboot.
The New Rooming Calendar
We have crafted a new drag and drop Rooming Calendar for you, with auto room capabilities, perfect for your front-of-house operations.
What is rooming?
Rooming refers to allocating your guests to specific rooms. It’s important to room guests to track arrivals, departures or no shows; to avoid situations where you have to move guests to a different room during their stay; ensure that special requests like a honeymoon room or a family room are accommodated and to automatically charge guest accounts using our stock and POS interface.
So what are the new features in the Rooming Calendar?
Rooming by the lodge staff is typically managed on the Rooming Calendar. Our previous calendar now called our “Classic” calendar, requires a lot of pop-ups and quite a bit of manual work to room bookings. Our stunning new calendar, which we call our “Modern” calendar fits visuals to your full-screen width, so you can see more information than ever before; automatically auto rooms reservations at the click of a button (our absolute favourite Jenga trick) and enables drag and drop should, you want to customise the view.
AUTO ROOM – Automatically room your unallocated reservations in the optimal configuration, to ensure that you get the most out of your availability.
DRAG AND DROP – Shuffle a reservation between rooms by simply dragging and dropping it to the relevant room. Clicking on a reservation item also highlights the valid rooming possibilities in green.
MANAGE A RESERVATION – Manage multiple aspects of a reservation without leaving the rooming calendar screen. Manage guests, view itineraries, check multiple rooms on a reservation in, and so much more.
ROOMING CONFLICTS – Our team has included an indication to alert users of any potential rooming conflicts. This will minimise the risk of overbooking a room, despite multiple people being responsible for rooming reservations.
Business Intelligence – Dashboards
We all love great pictures, even more, when they tell a story. If your job is to stay on top of everything, you’ll love our new Reservation Manager and Sales Overview Dashboard. The Reservation Manager and Sales Overview Dashboard are the first of many dashboards we’ll be introducing. Graphs on this dashboard will give you visibility into the reservation and sales overview side of your business. The sales dashboard will help measure key metrics, individual team members, and sales activities.
Learn more about dashboards here.
Our new charts will help you analyse the booking trends of your Agents and quickly spot gaps and positive or negative changes in their performance.
You spoke and we listened
Last year we released dashboards as part of our Agent CRM. We received feedback that you would like to include revenue information, our developers heard you, and have added a revenue-based chart so you can monitor how your agents are performing month-on-month.
Product Usage
ResRequest is a powerful system, so how can you be sure that you are using it to its full potential?
The Product Usage Dashboard is a quick and easy reference point, to assess what areas of the system are being used and what you can still tap into.
If you need any assistance or guidance with the rooming calendar and dashboards, please contact [email protected]
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